A report on the 'gentrification' of Brooklyn

Brooklyn is home to four of the top 25 fastest gentrifying zip codes nationwide, according to an analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Michael Petrilli.

Petrilli, the Institute's executive vice president and a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, yesterday posted an article on the Institute's blog entitled, "The fastest-gentrifying neighborhoods in the United States."

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He based his analysis on Census Bureau data. Here's how he explained his methodology:

I looked at zip codes (which isn’t perfect, because boundaries can change) and places with a large increase in the white share of the population (which isn’t perfect, because you’d really want to look at changes in income levels, but those data aren’t available yet for 2010).

So really, as Choire Sicha has it, these might more accurately be called the "fastest-whitening" neighborhoods.

The report found that the Columbia, South Carolina zip code of 29202 showed the largest increase in its white share of population, from 32.6 percent in 2000 to 79.7 in 2010, but four neighborhoods in Brooklyn weren't far behind.

Parts of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, which have traditionally been known as middle-class black neighborhoods, showed a dramatic increase in white population, with the sixth-ranked 11205 zip code showing a jump from 19.7 percent in 2000 to 49.3 in 2010.

Two zip codes encompassing parts of Williamsburg also ranked, with the white share of 11206 increasing from 16.6 percent to 45.6 percent; and the white share of 11237 increasing from from 22.6 percent to 42.3 percent.

Also in the top 25: The Prospect Heights zip code of 11238, whose white share grew from 16.8 percent to 38.3 percent.